Year: 2010

* 3:48 p.m. update: On the NFL Network, Mike Lombardi confirmed he had a long discussion with Jed York Tueday night, said he’s not a candidate for the GM job, and added that he believes Trent Baalke will get it within 48 hours.

Which would be before Sunday. And York told me he wouldn’t have a hire by Sunday and in fact said he might not be at the game Sunday because he could be interviewing candidates Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Via text-message, I asked Jed for a specific reaction to Lombardi’s comment that it will be Baalke getting the job within two days.

Jed’s response: “We’re going to take our time to get the right person.”

A little enigmatic. I can say that I’m a bit confused, like everybody else, maybe including the people I’ve named in the first few grafs.

Conclusion? We’ll have to wait and see what happens, or doesn’t, by Friday or Saturday. I think Jed wants to hire Baalke and intends to hire Baalke, but the status of the Jim Harbaugh talks might go hand in hand with the GM timing.

* 9:03 a.m. Wednesday update: Outstanding piece by the Merc’s Dan Brown, summarizing the 49ers’ habit of telling the world how great they arewithout actually being great. Or close to great. Jed’s Immaculate GM Search–to find the perfection candidate, right there next to him all along!–is not unrelated to the syndrome.

Yes, it now seems entirely possible that Jed York has it set up for Trent Baalke to be the winner of the Trent Baalke Invitational.

Amazing how that happens.

Congratulations to Baalke, if the various reports are true and he has triumphed so resoundingly over the lustrous list of candidates, most of whom York HAS NOT EVEN INTERVIEWED YET.

But in a matter of hours, like a flash of a cosmic vision, Jed has apparently seen the light of Baalke.

Baalke, your presumed next 49ers GM, the man from which Jed swears all future football decisions will come.

(Except probably the hiring of the head coach–if it’s Jim Harbaugh, because it’s obvious that Jed’s the one making that choice. Not a bad one. But a big one that Jed is making, not the GM. Jed.)

Two major points to start:

* What a typical safe, comfortable, shaky-confidence, immature hire. Same old Yorks, who can never seem to hire a GM or coach that would be hired in that role by any other team.

Even if there are special circumstances with Baalke (read: Harbaugh might come along), why trick up a fake process, pretend that there were other real candidates, only to leak to reporters after half-a-day of the interview process that it’s all Baalke?

Why not interview other serious candidates–ANY SERIOUS CANDIDATES–who, at the very least, could toss out alternate ideas and challenge the 49ers’ status quo?

* Sorry, this was supposed to be up earlier, but I’ve been mesmerized by Ratto’s visage on my TV screen — he’s sitting in for Radnich Radio, and also the Comcast simulcast, and I have the sound down while his sweatjacket & gesturing light up the Nielsen ratings…

-Nothing spectacularly surprising about this, but after speaking with two NFL sources this morning, I can reiterate that it sounds like Jed York has circled Jon Gruden and Jim Harbaugh as his main head-coaching candidates.

Makes sense. It’s not wrong. Gruden and Harbaugh have to be the top candidates for the 49ers’ job and, I believe, under the right circumstances, both would be quite interested.

Wouldn’t shock me at all if there already have been informal discussions with the representatives of both men, maybe even a light conversation between Jed and both primaries.

But York also is going to hire the GM first, and promises that the GM will make the call on the HC, but if he’s doing this right, he knows which GM candidates are most likely to bring in a top guy like Gruden or Harbaugh.

This doesn’t mean the 49ers are a lock to hire a GM with ties to Gruden or Harbaugh, and even if they do, those two have many career options and have been known to pull a tease or two.

Just ask the University of Miami with Gruden. And we’ll see what happens with Harbaugh and Michigan in the next week or so.

It’s also possible — knowing the Yorks — that a non-Gruden/Harbaugh GM-candidate blows the doors off his interview with Jed, and convinces him that the 49ers can go with a different (and cheaper!) kind of coach.

-Quick reaction to Jed York’s press conference today (which I couldn’t get back from St. Louis in time to attend)…

From TV highlights, York looked as focused and angry as he did yesterday in the 49ers’ locker room, which is not a bad thing at all.

Sometimes the only way drastic changes–and admissions of major errors–can get made is when the No. 1 guy gets infuriated by the situation and steps forward to take responsibility for a housecleaning, damn the feelings of those in the building.

However, in exact reverse of 2005, when Jed was part of a committee that hired Mike Nolan as coach first then let Nolan hire Scot McCloughan as his personnel exec…

This time Jed is strongly and suddenly emphasizing the need to hire a GM first, then let the GM hire the coach.

Which obviously would seem to put the coach in a subsidiary role, whether you’re talking about true roster power or face-o’-team imagery.

Not a wrong idea, by any means. In the big new complicated NFL landscape, this is the way most successful teams do it–the GM provides the template and he finds the coach who can match and amplify his beliefs and provides him with the talent to fit it.

The 49ers have recently gone the all-powerful-coach route, and multiplied the error by giving that full power to untested coaches–Nolan and Mike Singletary.

Oops. So the GM-first mode is not, on its face, a signal of further 49ers doom.

However, Part 2: The 49ers are a team that seems to need more than just a strong GM. They really, really, really are crying for a strategic, aggressive, multi-dimensional coach. (Sean Payton/Raheem Morris/John Harbaugh model.)

-One point: What will Jed York do if the best GM candidate wants nothing to do with Paraag Marathe and Trent Baalke?

That might be the true test of York.

—-the column/

ST. LOUIS—Jed York barked out his words, scowled a few times, and stood in the middle of an empty locker room looking like he’d aged 10 years in the last few weeks.

No, the 49ers president didn’t seem so young any more.

About an hour after the 49ers were eliminated from the playoff race by the Rams, York summoned reporters, then quickly laid the groundwork for the firing of coach Mike Singletary and a recasting of the team’s hierarchy.

York made it official after returning to the Bay Area Sunday night, announcing the firing Singletary and naming defensive line coach Jim Tomsula interim coach for the team’s final game.

But the announcement was mere formality. The decision had been
made after the game, and York, in the locker room, made no secret of it.